So.. I have been gone from WoW now for probably 18 months give or take and recently due to boredom (of course) with the other games I had been playing I've had an interest in stopping back by the old neighborhoods and playing again... however I cannot bring myself to actually do it. Not because I don't WANT to play but because I almost get this feeling like I'll be climbing Mount Everest without any supplies.

I feel intimidated to come back and try to catch up with everyone else when it comes to gear, knowledge, etc..

What are your thoughts, feedback & personal experiences when you have left and returned to a game after such a long absence?

"Warning: AA posts may cause severe urges to buy or rent games you may not have been interested in, known about or would normally consider playing. If you experience sudden urges to purchase said games please consult your wallet, bank account or significant other to see if these games are right for you and your budget."

hey, Welcome back m8... speaking from experience with close cooworkers...

Wow is like riding a bike, once you master it, you cannot unlearn it... well unless you take a nasty head injury or Lobotomy, in that case you should stick to bib and LFR.

You know all the things, just get an nice guy that can explain to you the very basic i.e. now abilities generate rage and you spend rage to reduce the damage intake... and you are set to go...Getting into MoP without being aware of the maps, lore and just chilling can be quite entertainning...

cheers

An open mind is like a fortress with its gates unbarred and unguarded.

Whilst not 18 months, I've just started playing again after an 8 month break. I didn't intend to return but a dream about pandas, an offer on MoP and boredom made me feel the desire to return. I decided that I would start over (almost) completely, I've transferred all my gold and heirlooms to the server I first played on and I've managed to catch up with a lot of the people I first started raiding with. That alone has given me the inspiration I need to carry on leveling my Panda Monk (currently at 62) hopefully right into the new content - leveling pre-80 is something I really despise.

As for game knowledge I'm still ignorant about a lot of the content at 90 but once I approach the level cap I should be a bit more familiar with it having done some normal dungeons and having had more time to ask questions. I'd definitely recommend trying to find some familiar faces and having them at the ready to answer all your questions.

I came back without any intention of raiding, but I'm definitely warming to the idea of 2 nights a week, I do miss the atmosphere of 10 man raids, the League of Legends community just isn't capable of filling that void. For the moment I'm just enjoying the fresh start and I plan to slow down a little bit and enjoy the new leveling content once I get to it, then the fun starts when it comes to gearing up.

"Warning: AA posts may cause severe urges to buy or rent games you may not have been interested in, known about or would normally consider playing. If you experience sudden urges to purchase said games please consult your wallet, bank account or significant other to see if these games are right for you and your budget."

Sheesh.. I was hoping for at least 12. room for 1 monk.. minimalists.. lol

"Warning: AA posts may cause severe urges to buy or rent games you may not have been interested in, known about or would normally consider playing. If you experience sudden urges to purchase said games please consult your wallet, bank account or significant other to see if these games are right for you and your budget."

I wouldn't worry about being behind. I would worry more about the structure of the content. You aren't forced at gunpoint, but you are highly encouraged to do a metric crapton of dailies on a daily basis for minuscule amounts of reputation in order to grind the factions that allow you to spend your valor points.

Dungeons are good to get your blue gear and then you're done with them. The valor reward for running randoms is small and you will likely max valor if you keep up on your dailies and LFRs.

I find that dailies take so much time I have little time for alts, which saps a lot of the interest of the game away for me and I end up not even logging in at times. For various reasons I missed my raid days last week (wed/thurs), but I haven't logged in for the past 6 days now, and I don't feel any burning desire to do so until raid time tomorrow.

Yeah I think thats what killed WoW for me this expansion.I raided heavily in BC and WolTK, took time off early-mid Cata, came back casually for late Cata and expected to Go raiding in Panda.But the massive questing required to get to 90, and then the wall of Dailies after killed my enthusiasm dead.Im a more of a dungeoneer personally. It would have been nice to get *something* for building rep for doing dungeons.Not tabbards, but maybe some coin that drops off the last boss?

Ellifain @ Khaz'Goroth does not approve of torture, save where there's experience/rep/loot involved.

The interesting thing is what would be the "catch up" path for someone, say, coming back in 5.2?

The new LFR loot system effectively serves as a gating function, slowing the gearing of alts, and the reps provide an additional cockblock. I'd love to see Blizz's numbers on the amount of time spent on "alts", I imagine it's slowing way down once people hit 90 and realize how much work it will be to get them geared.

Amirya wrote:... because everyone needs a Catagonskin rug.

twinkfist wrote:i feel bad for the Mogu...having to deal with alcoholic bears.

I wouldn't be surprised to see the rep requirement dropped from Valor gear with 5.2 and gear moved to Justice, eventually with new gear available... somehow.

theckhd wrote:Fuck no, we've seen what you do to guilds. Just imagine what you could do to an entire country. Just visiting the US might be enough to make the southern states try to secede again.

halabar wrote:Noo.. you don't realize the problem. Worldie was to negative guild breaking energy like Bolvar is to the Scourge. If Worldie is removed, than someone must pick up that mantle, otherwise that negative guild breaking energy will run rampant, destroying all the servers.

I took a year out during the launch of wotlk, returning in the ICC period. It was quite daunting, being three tiers behind the curve in terms of gear but by that time, Blizzard had made catching up with gear quite user friendly (compared to the BC era) so it went smoothly.

I would not be deterred. The leveling experience is rather fun - probably better than any before. Getting geared for raiding is quick - as a tank, you get instant queues for heroics and a weekend binge should get you pretty much decked out in 463 gear which is enough to start with. There's not much new to learn about tanking - it sounds so different with active mitigation, haste being a great palatank stat etc. But it still feels very similar to what you are familiar with, only a bit more interesting. LFR is coming into its own now - you can see A LOT of raid content very easily. The real raids are very well done.

The controversial feature is the rep and VP grind. On balance, I like it - it means you have a lot to do if and when you are not raiding. Gearing up is also more incremental, rather than just praying for one tank drop, you have 458=>463=>476=>483=>489=>496=> heroic whatever and that's even before you add in the new feature of using points to upgrade your gear.

The downside is alts: they are hard to play with now; working on your main will take all your time. You can quite easily use them for their professions though, thanks to the new farming feature.

Worldie wrote:I wouldn't be surprised to see the rep requirement dropped from Valor gear with 5.2 and gear moved to Justice, eventually with new gear available... somehow.

What are these Justice Points you speak of? Seriously, wtb JPs. The only way I can see getting serious quantities of them is from pvp, converting from honour.

theckhd wrote:Fuck no, we've seen what you do to guilds. Just imagine what you could do to an entire country. Just visiting the US might be enough to make the southern states try to secede again.

halabar wrote:Noo.. you don't realize the problem. Worldie was to negative guild breaking energy like Bolvar is to the Scourge. If Worldie is removed, than someone must pick up that mantle, otherwise that negative guild breaking energy will run rampant, destroying all the servers.

It would have been interesting to have all dailies past the VP cap switch to JP. There's probably some glaring technical issues with that but hey.. it's a nice idea.

At least when it comes to dailies and whatnot they realized the mistakes they made with all the gating and how it relates to not only mains but alts as well. Judging by the latest round of dev interviews it's more than likely going to change going forward. The commendation thing is a nice step forward but it still needs a lot of work imo.

Looking back at the daily quests, anything that rewards player power feels mandatory to raiders, but this has to be balanced with giving purely cosmetic rewards. There has to be enough of a reward to encourage players to do some quests, but not so much that it feels mandatory for everyone.

Shyrtandros wrote:I have been gone from WoW now for probably 18 months give or take (...) What are your thoughts, feedback & personal experiences when you have left and returned to a game after such a long absence?

Shrug it off and give it a go. Resubscribing for a month should clear the waters.

Off-topic : I did giggle a bit over those 18mo. My first alt (Prot Warrior) has been inactive since late 1.11. The main (Rogue), since 3.1 was on the PTR. Then again, I'm not resurrecting anything anytime soon.

*sarcasm* WoW has gotten exponentially harder to play with every expac since TBC.

It's too easy. Between this site, Noxxic, and Mr Robot, all you've got to think about is smashing keys. The rep grind sucks, but most of it really is optional, unless you want the mounts or crafting patterns. The LFR gear, while 6 ilvls lower than valor, is still almost universally better itemized than the valor gear. And you can farm valor from dungeons for ilvl upgrades on LFR gear. Heroic dungeon gear and LFR gear is more than sufficient to go raid with if that's your thing.

Nooska wrote:*has 4 level 90's and gearing the second character for raids now - damn missing a tank*

All my alt playing stopped when I found out about the Rep Commendation addition in 5.1, hit 90 in Townlong with a little bit of Shado-Pan quests left so all of Dreadwastes to go. Now I'll pick it back up since I finished the 5.1 Rep on my main.

We live in a society where people born on third base constantly try to steal second, yet we expect people born with two strikes against them to hit a homerun on the first pitch.

Shyrtandros wrote:I almost get this feeling like I'll be climbing Mount Everest without any supplies. I feel intimidated to come back and try to catch up with everyone else when it comes to gear, knowledge, etc....

I had this same issue after a long hiatus (shorter than yours). My best advice is to just reactivate your account and start playing. If you run into problems ask questions here or look up stuff on WoWHead.

Also, if you haven't activated your account yet, and know of any friends that still play, have them send you a scroll of resurrection. That way, you'll get an extra alt leveled to 80 (or was it 85?) with two professions maxed out.

I was also coming back for MoP, but was unaware of this scroll thing, else I'd have asked someone to use it on me.

As for the grinding dailies for rep for valor items, that's not a must. You probably should grind the Tiller dailies (center of Valley of the Four Winds) until you're exalted for the 16 farm spot, but other than that... You can spend Valor either on buying these pieces or upgrade epics from other sources. At the start you won't have any epics, but it takes 3 weeks to reach the cap. Hopefully you have at least one nice epic looted from LFR to upgrade by then.

Even if you want to buy the epics, you only get so much valor at once, so you don't need to grind them all at once. Shieldwall/Offensive (Krasarang Wilds) is probably the place to start, considering these items are slightly higher ilvl.

Note that the upgrade NPC is currently not present on the PTR, so this might no longer be an option in 5.2.

Also, if the rep items become available for JP that changes things, as there's no cap on JP, so suddenly grinding out every single daily path to revered (and Klaxxi/Golden Lotus to exalted for the quest reward) might become a good thing.

(I hope Blizzard has some mechanic in play that doesn't force new level 90s post 5.2 to grind the heck out of all the dailies, and then grind the heck out of heroics for the JP to buy these.)

i have two 90's right now...warrior and paladin. my paladin is my main but my warrior gets some love. i have two other alts i play...86 shaman and 85 dk...i barely touch those. my shaman is my enchanter...but right now i just use him to DE stuff.

i'll maybe get around to leveling them...but right now...most of my time is spent on my warrior and paladin.

have a hunter at level 45...but i just forget to level him after running all sorts of stuff with the other toons.